Le[e]gal Brief: Why It Matters The Supreme Court Struck Down Trump’s Tariffs 

Welcome to your weekly Le[e]gal Brief with Lee Merritt, Esq. In this week’s episode, Merritt focuses on the tariffs implemented by President Donald Trump and how both international and domestic leaders use emergency powers to sidestep legislative bodies like Congress. 

“Under our constitutional design, Congress is the queen of the economic board. The most powerful piece when it comes to money, taxes, and tariffs,” Merritt explains. “While the president is more like a knight. Agile, important, but bound by the pattern the Constitution gives him.” 

That analogy has only been strengthened by the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down the tariffs Trump unilaterally imposed last year. When announcing the tariffs, Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) as the authority that allowed him to sidestep Congress. 

“He claimed that foreign fentanyl trafficking and chronic trade deficits were national emergencies, and that the IEEPA let him tax foreign goods at will for as long as and as high as he chose,” Merritt explains. Trump’s tariffs were immediately challenged by importers and several state attorneys general who, according to Merrit, “argued that the IEEPA allowed the president to regulate commerce in emergencies, but it does not give him a blank check to create new taxes or tariff schemes that Congress never approved.” 

As Merrit explained through his chess analogy, the Constitution gives Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, the power of the purse. If this were a normal time, Congress probably would’ve acted to strike down the tariffs. Instead, the Republican controlled chambers have largely allowed Trump to undermine their powers throughout his second term, resulting in the issue being taken up to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court struck down the tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, finding that “The IEEP does not authorize the president to impose tariffs,” Merritt explains. 

Later in the video, Meritt looks at how international leaders have used emergency powers to sidestep legislators and seize economic and political power. “For example, in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has repeatedly used emergency-style power to rule by decree,” Merritt explains. In 2022, around the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Hungary’s parliament passed legislation allowing the Prime Minister to declare a state of emergency if a neighboring country was at war or in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. 

“Orban immediately declared such a state and began governing under special powers that allowed his Cabinet to issue decrees affecting public spending, regulation, and even elections with limited parliamentary oversight at all,” Merritt says in the video. “International democracy monitors have cited these moves as central to Hungary’s slide into hybrid or authoritarian status, where formal elections exist but an executive dominates the power of the purse and the pen.” 

We could see a similar situation play out in the United States as the Trump administration is drafting an executive order to declare an emergency that would give the federal government control over how elections are conducted. 

Next week, Merritt will take a look at how courts are changing protest rights and surveillance laws under the Trump administration and how organizers can protect themselves in this changing landscape. 

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